How do I read the coolant temperature gauge?

When there's no actual temperature markings, how much is too hot / too cold / normal

More than halfway is too hot. Anything else is fine.

If it ain't at H that's all you need to know

if it starts creeping up past 1/2 consistently to hot, you should start getting concerned

>too hot
Near H
>too cold
Near C
>normal
Around the middle

So is OP's pic about normal, or close to too warm?

This.

If it touches any red, shut engine off immediately and fix your shit.

On nearly every car, the centre is where the thermostat opens. So it should always sit there during normal operation, and you should always wait until it's settled there before flooring it.

i hate how gauges just say "Full" or "Empty"
or "Hot" or "Cold"

fuck it would be alot more useful and easier to use gauges if they were actually labelled with units like Gallons/Litres for fluid levels, or 0° - 300° for temp readings

literally pisses me off to no end

most of these are liar dials anyway. People used to freak out about the normal temperature fluctuation in their vehicles so all the manufacturers that I know of have a gauge that sits in the middle unless the temp passes a certain threshold of hot or cold.

Normally you're not reading the exact value, the gauges are just there so you can see at a quick glance if everything's about how it should be (engine up to operating temp, about half a tank of fuel left, etc).
Exact value readouts would please my autism to be sure, but during normal operation the exact value doesn't really matter and needle position is what you'll be reading anyway.

i just want to be able to look at my fuel gauge and read how many gallons i have left, not what approximate proportion of a full tank i have.
the needle showing me i have 1/4 tank left doesn't tell me how many gallons i have left

>20 gallon tank
>Gauge shows 1/4 tank left
Gee I wonder how I find out how many gallons of gas I had left.

You should be able to do this in your head

>run truck till nearly empty
>fill up
>round up a little

that's how many gallons you can carry gee that was fucking hard

>implying I have time for constantly doing maths while driving
this is bullshit.
i didn't live through the digital age just to keep on doing maths in my head.
I got better things to do

Your car should have a digital readout somewhere

>Has to constantly redo the calculation every time
What a retard.

>that's how many gallons you can carry gee that was fucking hard
exactly. so how fuking hard would it be for those assholes to mark the hauge with 0, 5, 10, 15 & 20 gallons marks instead of,.."hurr durr. full, empty, or somewhere in between, you figure it out"
fucking bullshit

they call these idiot gauges. because they were designed and built by idiots

Most people just remember how far they get on a single tank.

Why do you need exact gallons? Just fill it up close to the E.

that's just replacing an idiot useless gas gauge with using the odometer/trip meter

>Why do you need exact gallons?
because i know approximately what my MPG is. also know the price per gallon of gas

so if i know exactly how many gallons i have left, i know how much further i can drive and i know how much money i need to fill up the tank.

also because i like to know in empirical units what amounts of things i have.

just saying "I half a tank of gas" doesn't mean anything to me.
But if I can say "I have 10 gallons of gasoline" then i have real information about something"

Saying, "My wallet is 3/4 full" doesn't mean much
but if I say, "wallet has $750 in it," then i actually have valuable and useful information

your wallet is infinite, you retard.

that's what my ex-wife thought

I would leave a man too if he was autistic

it is only by the sheer force of my indomitable autism that i have achieved my present place in this world
autism = power

This.

OEM temp gauges are fucking useless and notmally logarithmic, centre weighted. if it hits red then it's already too hot.

That said a healthy stock car shouldn't overheat.

>buy new car for wife
>temperature gauge reads 200°c
>lol, is that alot?
>get fine marker pen
>assuming 60l tank, write 45l at 3/4, 30l at 1/3 ect

well your power was not enough to have units in car's gauges

Unless you have shitty alloy heads, hitting the red for a second isn't going to kill your engine

>how fuking hard would it be

Gas tanks are not perfect cylinders. Therefore a drop of one inch in volume may be 1 gallon or 4 gallons depending on the shape of the tank. Sure you could map specific volumes to depths for a readout, but that would be way more complicated that the simple linear resistor in most cars today. So added cost and complexity.

Because of said tank shape, the fuel sender float doesn't actually move until some fuel has been used. So basically from Completely Full -> float movement is all guess work. Could be half gallon could be 3.

Gas sloshes around as you drive. Therefore your gauge may jump from 3 gallons to 10 gallons as you drive because of the aforementioned volume differences. You may already notice this if you park / drive on a steep incline. Jumping needles tend to scare most motorists. A linear resistor tends to smooth those movements.

i understand what you are saying but i cant believe it is that cost prohibitive to come up with a reliable system to read gas tank volume.
there must be some way

>integrate load cells into fuel tank mounting bracket
>load cell signal to PLC
>PLC translates output to desired unit of liquid volume
done.

Oh, so your poverty-tier poor, got it.

i've driven my taurus in the red once for like 5 minutes before i noticed the gauge, the fan controller was dead. no damage on the engine, gotta love cast iron

Pretty much this. on a 2012 chevy express the gauge sits in the middle and it says 210 but plug it into a scanner and it reads 204 at most. Once it gets up to temp most if not all sensors just stand still until it reaches a threshold of too cold or too hot to let you know there might be an issue but to not worry you most of the time if there isnt one.